We made some progress in the bracketing process for the NCAA playoffs this year! Every team that earned a first-round bye was actually awarded one. Seems like a low bar when you talk about it that way, but … if there were a big sign up in the committee room, it would say, “1 year without giving a first-round bye to a team which didn’t earn it via NPI.”

In the end, this bracket has a lot to like — even though a number of teams are in the NCAA playoffs for at least the fifth consecutive year, 10 teams, in fact — there are still a lot of new matchups. Susquehanna vs. W&J isn’t seen very often. Concordia (Wis.) and Coe? LaGrange and Framingham State certainly not. Hanover and Grove City? How about the MIAA-WIAC crossover games?

We talk with John Snell, the NCAA football championships committee chair for Division III, and he tells us what was important for the committee this year, and yes, a good part of it was restricting as many flights as possible and removing the chance of them from this bracket.

Somehow, we knew this would happen, and wrote a whole song about it! Yes, there’s a new parody in this edition of the podcast.

What are the best first-round games and the best second-round games? What team playing in the first round could advance a couple of rounds in this bracket?

Also, what is semifinal sauce? And what would the Texas teams have to do, in theory, to keep from having to play each other so early in the playoffs? We hear you, we feel you, we ask the question. Plus, we take a bunch of your mailbag questions.

We also hand out game balls, bring you through the crazy stats of the week, highlight the key goings-on in Region 1 through Region 6, get you games to look forward to next week. And we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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The Captains of Christopher Newport are back in the playoffs for the second time in three years and for the 12th time in their relatively short history. And they got there by knocking the Sea Gulls of Salisbury off their perch on Saturday night, in a pretty epic battle under the lights.

In one week, Eastern went from the driver’s seat in the Middle Atlantic Conference to booking a ticket to the big dance for the first time — and this is a program that three years ago, had never even been on this metaphorical bus. We bring Eastern coach Billy Crocker for another round on the Fast Five machine, after he last joined us for Podcast 333.

And who knows what seat at the table Hudson Fulcher-Melendy will be relegated to this Thanksgiving when the family gathers for the feast. Hudson is the Amherst kicker, who was 4-for-4 on field goals in Amherst’s 14-13 win, and whose sisters Dylan and Madison played women’s volleyball and soccer, respectively, for Williams, and whose mom, Lisa Melendy, has been athletic director at Williams for the past 15 years!

Honestly, if someone is telling you F&M and Coe have no chance to make this field if they lose … they may be working with faulty assumptions. To do that accurately, you have to project the results of all of the remaining Week 11 games, and projecting the team with the higher NPI as the winner across a hundred games is going to get you some data that doesn’t line up. F&M and Coe absolutely have a chance, and in Analytics 301, Logan Hansen will tell you who else has a chance with two losses.

Plus we hand out game balls, bring you through the crazy stats of the week, highlight the key goings-on in Region 1 through Region 6, get you games to look forward to next week. And we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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Two top 10 teams square off, and one team does something it hasn’t done in a quarter century. Yep, that’s a big deal. Heck, UW-River Falls hadn’t beaten UW-Whitewater that handily since the 1980s. We have talked about Kaleb Blaha fairly often on this podcast in the last few years, and that’s because he’s darn good, and was a big-game player on Saturday.

Three of the 27 automatic bids to the playoffs have already been handed out, and we give our assessment of how Wartburg, Concordia Wisconsin and Hanover will likely fare, what type of seeding they might end up with, and the like. Plus there are several head-to-head games for conference automatic bids this weekend, and we’ll talk through those as well.

Of course, you’ll never guess whether home teams or road teams won the big games in the WIAC. OK, maybe you’ll guess.

Plus, one time drove perfectly all day in Division III, and another drove perfectly long, more than 12 minutes?! Patrick and Greg hand out game balls. We take four mailbag questions, and make good use of Logan Hansen’s D-III NPI Simulator in the process. Who should you root for or against if you need an at-large bid? There are answers out there for you.

Logan Hansen talks about which teams still have a chance of getting an at-large bid and at least one of them may surprise you! We go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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We have just three weeks left in the regular season, with Selection Sunday and the bracket announcement coming on Nov. 16. With the NCAA Division III football national committee no longer responsible for selecting teams to play in the playoffs, what does the committee chair do?

It’s a little more than just handing the trophy off to the team that wins the Stagg Bowl, like John Snell is doing in this photo, but sure, it’s a little less than it used to be. Instead, the role is different, and includes more about bracketing, more about game management, more about how to enhance the entire playoff experience than the general fan ever probably knew.

John Snell, the associate athletic directory at Baldwin Wallace University and the chair of the Division III football committee, sits down with us to answer our questions. Some of these questions are:

All of these are asked! Many of them are answered, plus you get the reaction from Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas. Find out more by listening to the podcast.

Mentioned in the show: Christopher Newport’s fraught relationship with the NCAA’s mileage calculator

We also take your mailbag questions — yes, including the one involving alien space laser beams from Mars — and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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We’re getting ever closer to Selection Sunday, and closer to automatic bids being clinched. We’ve already discussed how few unbeaten teams there are this time of year compared to previous years, and of course, we had one more go down on Saturday when Wartburg defeated Central.

Wartburg has been really consistent at the top of the American Rivers Conference, or near the top of it. Head coach Chris Winter isn’t the only head coach who has been part of this run, but the Knights coaching staff has been really consistent over the years. We talk with Winter about how the program achieves this consistency while turning players over year after year, we hear about the key offensive guys who are healthy and the defensive starter who could be on the Owen Grover upward trajectory.

Plus, we look at the Whitewater offense, with its moments of brilliance, and try to decipher what they need. We take four mailbag questions, everything from deciphering which conferences have benefited the most from the NPI system and playoff expansion, to which play in the North Central game was most impressive, to whether there should be a cutoff for record for at-large teams, to which game — of a limited set of choices — we would choose to go see in Week 11 if we have to book travel now.

(Spoilers: The travel was already booked, and we’ll tell you where Patrick Coleman will be in Week 11.)

Plus, Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, one for one of the craziest endings to a game you could describe from Saturday’s games. We talk about how long it’s been since New England College had won a game before the Pilgrims beat Maine Maritime on Saturday — it’s longer than you think! We dive into the double SCIAC double overtime games, and the controversial ending between DePauw and Denison, and whether River Falls needs Kaleb Blaha on Saturday (it wouldn’t hurt!).

We spotlight the unusual stats of the week, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have the best chance of getting a top-eight seed and protected home field in the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

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Montie Quinn should have been a household name to you already. He was a D3football.com All-America running back last season, rushing for 1,600 yards. He’d had two 200-yard rushing games already this season, he’s now over 5,000 rushing yards for his career … if you only found out about him on Saturday, or Sunday, that’s a bummer. When he exploded for 522 yards in a win vs. Nichols on Saturday, you should have said, yeah, actually, I can see that happening.

Quinn had an amazing Saturday, and probably spent a good amount of Sunday doing interviews. You can find his story in The Athletic, and on area TV stations, with more to come. And he chatted with us as well, just like he did this past summer. Quinn is our Fast Five guest — sorry, our Fast 522, plus he gets a game ball, of course, and much more.

If not for that, we’d be talking even more about the incredible game that took place between John Carroll and DePauw on Saturday, one that ended in a fashion that people will talk about for years, with the sunlight all but gone and with a touchdown catch with 14.4 seconds left. We talk about the learnings for the Blue Streaks and the Tigers and yes, DePauw still has plenty of weapons.

UW-Platteville and UW-La Crosse had to dig into their two-deeps to find starting running backs this week, and Platteville came out on top. Hear from freshman running back Blake Bangston, who ran for 105 yards and a touchdown, as well as sophomore quarterback Nate Uselding and coach Ryan Munz about the win.

Also, we’ll share the story of the person who thought he held the Division III single-game rushing record some years ago, only to have it taken away.

Plus, Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unusual stats of the week, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have the best chance of getting a top-eight seed and protected home field in the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Note: This edition of the podcast originally contained a reaction to a social media post by a Division III football program’s official account that we later understood to be faked footage. We have removed our reaction and reissued the episode.

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These are the things that make up Division III football this time of year. W’s and L’s as in wins and losses, X’s and O’s as in how plays and schemes are drawn up on paper, and 0’s and 1’s as in the data that is used to determine who will make the playoffs and how they’ll be seeded, in the NCAA Power Index.

We got the first look at the NCAA’s version of the data in the NPI this week, and no surprise to anyone here that the data fully passed inspection and is exactly the same as what we’ve seen on D3datacast — that’s the link on our home page menu, for your reference.

Of course, there were some great games to run down this week, such as how the folks at Johns Hopkins put together a third- and fourth-quarter rally to get past Carnegie Mellon. We talk about how the game turned, what can be learned, how the teams can grow from here. Hardin-Simmons/Mary Hardin-Baylor and Berry-Trinity (Texas) were big games that ended up not being close. What’s up with UMHB? And we also chat with Tony Kunczewski, the head coach at Berry, about his team’s big day and their win in our Fast 5 segment.

And yes, there were upsets in the WIAC. Or were there? What really constitutes an upset in WIAC games these days? Co-hosts Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas talk it through.

Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unusual stats of the week, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have the best chance of getting a top-eight seed and protected home field in the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. You can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/?feed=podcast

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Ah yes, we not only go from the land of serious tailgating to also serious tailgating. From 20,000 fans to 6,500 fans in a rivalry game. These are two great tastes that tasted great together on Saturday, part of a smorgasbord of great Division III football, with so many games that we actually didn’t even talk about Muhlenberg-Ursinus in this podcast. (But we will probably talk about Muhlenberg at some point.)

Here’s who you will be seeing — or hearing about. We run down the UW-La Crosse win at UW-Whitewater and talk with La Crosse coach Matt Janus, we talk about Oshkosh-River Falls, we talk about North Central-Wheaton and hear from North Central coach Brad Spencer, and we talk about Bethel-St. John’s and Royals coach Mike McElroy joins us on Fast Five.

It’s like this week was a Christmas present wrapped up in an October day that sure felt like it was Aug. 22. Phew. Hot! But so was the action on the field in Week 5, and Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, spotlight the unusual stats of the week, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have the best chance of getting a top-eight seed and protected home field in the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Plus, we take the mailbag question that really ties it all together and has a nice finish.

Every team we spend time on is tagged in this post and you can see those at the bottom of this page. It’s a ton.

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Postgame interview and footage with UW-La Crosse, Matt Janus (YouTube)

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You’ve gotten the stop, pounced on a fumble, you’re celebrating a key win to open up your conference slate. Only then do the officials huddle up, and without the benefit of replay, overturn the call originally made on the field and give the team which by all rights lost the game another chance.

You’d be forgiven, perhaps, if it took you more than the customary 24 hours to get that emotion out of your system, to turn the page.

If you were Hope, which had defeat snatched from the jaws of victory on Saturday afternoon, in a turn of events so unexpected that it has garnered 211,000 views as of this writing on our X account, you could be excused. But the Flying Dutchmen will show up for the 6:30 team meeting with head coach Peter Stuursma today and be asked to turn the page.

No, the MIAA can’t overturn the result — they tried to with a basketball game back in 2001. Will the conference issue a statement about the officiating at the end of the game? They should. The answer to our question to the conference office came while we were recording, and you’ll hear our reaction as the response came in, live.

Coach Stuursma joins us to talk about the play and the aftermath on this edition of the podcast in Fast Five.

Haven’t seen the play? It’s this one below.

Agreed with the broadcast. The game should be over. It’s clearly a catch and an intentional lateral, and therefore a fumble, not an incomplete pass. Hope should have had this win in the books. #d3fb pic.twitter.com/4iyzEdLkf2

— D3football.com (@d3football) September 27, 2025

Not the only big game, don’t get us wrong. Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas dive into the Christopher Newport-Susquehanna game, the interesting ways in which quarterback Josh Ehrlich and running back Rahshan La Mons were used, and the body language of the two teams down the stretch. And it seemed super likely that the Washington & Jefferson Presidents weren’t going to start the season 0-3, and we look deeply at their game with Grove City from Saturday night.

Plus, we’ll take four your mailbag questions about the Top 25. Why do teams on bye move? What do voters do with Alma and Hope?

Patrick and Greg Thomas hand out game balls, Logan Hansen talks about which conferences have a better than 70% chance of getting an at-large team into the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mentioned link below:

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You can subscribe to the Around the Nation Podcast in Apple Podcasts, and many other places. You can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/?feed=podcast

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For some teams, a 3-0 start is precisely in the plan. For others, 3-0 is perhaps a pipe dream, or a first-time occurrence.

In this week’s edition of the podcast, we talk about a few of each as we wrap up Week 3 of the Division III football season.

Johns Hopkins was given just about a 50% chance of starting the season 3-0, with some top-flight competition on the docket. But they got the job done, and we learned a little bit about the Blue Jays in the process. We’ll tell you what we’ve seen and coach Dan Wodicka will do the same.

UW-Whitewater vaulted itself into the same top echelon as the rest of the WIAC contenders with a big win down at Mary Hardin-Baylor. What did we see that bodes well for the Warhawks and what does this do to the Cru’s playoff chances? We’ll discuss.

Plus, a number of teams are surprising at 3-0. How about Calvin? The Knights are in just their second season of varsity football and got to 3-0 in dramatic fashion on the road, against a team from a tough conference. How about Hampden-Sydney? The Tigers moved to 3-0 and did it in dominant fashion, and on the ground. And Lewis & Clark, you know, the school that hired away Linfield offensive coordinator Brett Elliott, the Gagliardi Trophy-winning quarterback, and made him head coach? The Pioneers got the job done with defense on Saturday, and Greg Thomas talks with Elliott in our Fast Five.

Plus, we’ll dive in and take four of your mailbag questions, about the SAA, how many teams we think are in the top tier of Division III, whether D-III’s wins against D-II schools and an FCS program mean that Division III is getting better, and what’s up with Coast Guard.

Patrick and Greg Thomas hand out game balls, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have a better than 50% chance of making the playoffs as an at-large team if needed, we go around each region for the happy and sad stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

All that and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mentioned link below:

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